Objectives and Context
Turkey is an upper-middle income developing country with a strong constitution and legal tradition, and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Turkey has been prioritizing poverty eradication for some years, but continues to be plagued by pockets of poverty and regional inequalities. Recent UNDP pro-poor programming and advocacy has focused on citizenship rights to non-discriminatory social welfare, and a host of democratic governance programmes have been initiated under the Turkey Local Agenda 21 (LA-21) Programme since 1997. Human rights have been a recurrent theme in the Turkey’s EU accession negotiations, and the Turkish government is very open to human rights language, especially in the context of civil and political rights. The UNDP project for localizing the millennium development goals is the country’s main policy instrument on the MDGs. The programme Linking Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals aims to strengthen all of these initiatives by linking human rights to Turkey’s Localizing the MDGs project, and injecting “the national pursuit of MDGs into the normative framework and realm of legal professionals.” The project thus aims to link human rights and MDGs in practical programming, through the capacities and accountability of local actors, and generally in public discourse.
Links, Strategies and Tools
UNDP Turkey regularly addresses development from within the paradigm of citizenship rights, as derived from the social democratic writings of T. H. Marshall in the 1940’s. This strategy is used to pursue potentially discriminatory practices and regional disparities, and allows UNDP to reference human rights instruments and concepts when addressing social development concerns, without binding either them or the government to a human rights discourse. UNDP Turkey credits this strategy’s success with the country’s strong constitution and legal tradition.
The Turkish national context is in many respects distinct in the region, and UNDP Turkey has not engaged with an international or regional Community of Practice on a humna rights based approach or the MDGs. UNDP has, however, established a National Community of Practice Network (see project document) on social assistance and pro-poor policy promotion. This network of academics, researchers and poverty practitioners regularly focuses media attention on specific issues, and has produced mixed results as a tool for the promotion of a human rights based approach—though the network has recently begun using human rights language, due largely to the advocacy efforts of UNDP. This network will be used to monitor municipalities in their progress towards fulfilling the MDGs and human rights.
Linking the Millennium Development Goals to Human Rights also makes use of complementary programming. By partnering with the community bodies charged with implementing Turkey’s main MDG policy instrument (LA21 City Councils), Linking the Millennium Development Goals to Human Rights will bring human rights into direct interaction with Turkey’s MDG policy.
Another of the project’s strategic partnerships is with the Ankara Bar Association. UNDP and the Ankara Bar Association will promote accountability through capacity development on both the “supply and demand ends” of local MDG delivery, through the production of a Toolkit for LA21 City Councils on human rights and MDGs. The toolkit will focus on the ‘demand end’ by providing guidance for City Councils on how to use legal language and legal tools to pursue the MDGs. These manuals will specify legal obligations and reference Turkish case law relevant to MDG accountability. In order to address the demand end, the Toolkit will also contain briefs for municipal officials, which will discuss local MDG progress and human rights protection in terms of legal obligations, outlining the legal frameworks and sources of these obligations in domestic and international law.
Lastly, together with UNDP’s partners in civil society, the local LA 21 City Councils, the project team is investigating whether the Bar Association may promote accountability through public interest litigation. Turkey’s experience with public interest litigation is unsystematic, and this project will provide an opportunity to test whether bringing public interest law suits to administrative courts, for specific failures to make progress on the MDGs is indeed a viable accountability mechanism. Tentative plans have been made to bring complaints in correspondence with the UN Human Rights Day on 10 December 2007.
Process and Status
LA City Councils in 7 pilot cities will host workshops in September 2007, bringing together representatives local bar associations, municipal officials, and LA21 City Councils. These workshops will be used to construct the Toolkit for LA21 City Councils, and explore options for pursuing legal strategies with local bar associations.
Impact
It is too early to note any impacts.
Challenges
A general challenge faced by UNDP Turkey and especially relevant to this project is the general tendency to understand social assistance in terms of charity rather than legal or state obligation. The HuRiLink web portal will be updated to include more specific challenges to these programmes as they arise.
Lessons Learned
The HuRiLink will be updated with lessons learned as the programmes progress.
